User Interface Design Search Engine Harder Than Google Engineering
October 15, 2014
Web site design used to be reserved for graphic designers with a fancy degree and background in computer science. Times have changed from the daunting trials of coding to simple click and drag selections. The advent of WordPress, Tumblr, Wix, Weebly, and Squarespace Web site design services simplify the process so anyone can create a decent site in seconds. If, however, you are interested in building a site that is more interactive than standard templates, then start taking advantage of UICloud.
UICloud is a user interface design search engine that plows through results and retrieves information geared specifically to your design needs.
“UICloud is a project created by Double-J Design. It collects the best UI element designs from the Internet all over the world and provides a search engine for you to find the best UI element that you need. We are aiming to create the biggest platform for designers to showcase their top user interface designs and for developer to get the best UI elements for their project easily and quickly.”
UICloud combines elements of Web site browsing and searching in one place. If you search for a specific topic, the results appear in thumbnails so you can preview the art. It takes advantage of the “magazine” format that’s grown popular. Categories are reminiscent of old webrings and link lists that used to collect related Web sites in one place. Categories are a neat feature, because it saves the trouble of searching and takes you straight to browsing. Remember how half the links used to be defunct? It is easy to see that happening.
Users can submit their user interface design to UICloud and then it will be added to the search results. All the listings might not be under the creative commons agreement. The UICloud team notes that you need to check with the artist before you use them.
Whitney Grace, October 15, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Oh Google Plus You Are Learning From Your Mistakes
October 15, 2014
Google has alienated many potential users for any of its services by forcing them to open a universal Google Plus account. Some argue that the benefits outweigh the negative factors, but others say they do not need another email or social media account. Ars Technica has an interesting article, “Google Nixes G+ Requirement For Gmail Accounts” explaining that Google is listening to its users.
Gmail users will soon be liberated from forced enrollment in Google Plus starting in early September. Mandatory enrollment in Google Plus to access Gmail has been a topic of consternation, boiling over when YouTube users had to join Google or they wouldn’t be able to post videos or comments anymore. It transformed into a colossal mess and the YouTube comments are still rolling out.
When Vic Gundotra left the company in April 2014, Google Plus stopped being at the forefront of products and services are slowly becoming individual entities again.
However…
“Even though forced G+ integration continues to disappear, Google’s push towards global identity management across its services isn’t going away—you can still use a single Google account for YouTube, Gmail, the Google Play store, and so on. However, making G+ optional makes it much easier to carve out and manage multiple identities across services; it’s getting easier to maintain a YouTube account that has nothing to do with your Gmail account or your Google Play account, for example. For people who prefer to keep different components of their online identity firmly segregated—as I do—this is a very, very good thing.”
Maintaining some form of multiple Internet identities has returned. Also Google Plus was supposed to make search more personal and touted the “search of the future” tagline. Not anymore!
Whitney Grace, October 15, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Google: A Magic Leap
October 14, 2014
Is it true that if one bets on enough race horses, one will win? Seems logical to those who hang out at Churchill Downs I suppose.
Miles away from the race track, I found the audiences I addressed at last week’s intelligence and law enforcement conference skeptical of Google’s search results. In 2013, there was more surprise when I demonstrated how queries for “twerk” did not involve too much “search.”
After the sessions, attendees commented on how much work is required to ferret out relevant results to queries. The notion that LE and intel professionals had to learn command line syntax to get useful information was a situation I did not think would arise. Hey, Google has smart software, artificial intelligence, the world’s fastest search engine, yada yada.
Searching Google is actually difficult if one wants to answer certain types of questions; for example, who in Scotland sells tactical shotgun silencers. Give that query a whirl in your spare time.
I read “Google Set to Lead Huge Investment in Magic Leap and Its “Cinematic Reality”. The write up provides a surprisingly poignant glimpse of into the Google business machine. Google is no longer content to borrow notions like head mounted mobile phones. Google wants to lift beyond big balloons which rhymes with “loons.” Google does not want to solve death.
Nope. Google is betting that it can invest in companies and tap into a new, swelling revenue stream. Search, it seems, has become an optimization task for the Googlers. The future lies in “cinematic reality.”
Google wants to be the lead elephant in the investing parade for Magic Leap. You can work through the original document to get a sense of the Fancy Dan augmented reality technology Magic leap allegedly possesses.
My view is that Google has to find a way to sustain revenue growth. Search is not the prize winning stallion it once was. I assume that Google believes that investments in companies that deliver magic will produce big bucks.
For me, I am concerned that the utility of the Google search system will continue to decrease for the types of research I do. If the feedback I received from LE and intel professionals is representative, there are a number of serious individuals who want a Google search to return relevant results, not ads and promotions for Google products and services.
I am all for magic, but magic involves tricks. Search requires more than wild bets and a faith in magic.
I do not crave a more realistic three dimensional experience. I am okay with a system that:
- Includes useful content in an accessible interface. Google’s convoluted blog search is not what I call accessible.
- Presents results that are in line with needs of the user, not the needs of the advertiser.
- Provides more frequently refreshed indexes for pages with content that are not focused on Dancing with the Stars, vacations, and hotels.
I want some of that old time search magic. Maybe a futuristic, robotic pony clone will make Google billions. I prefer a search donkey that gets the job done. Onward, precision and recall.
Stephen E Arnold, October 14, 2014
Big Data Myths Debunked by Gartner Research
October 14, 2014
The article titled The Truth About Big Data on Datamation was posted September 26, 2014 and debunks some of the myths surrounding big data. Gartner, tech research firm, has collected data on the plans of organizations for big data. The most hopeful information may have been for businesses who have yet to hop on the big data bandwagon. This may sound like old news, but Gartner’s analysis of its findings leads to their claim that big data solution’s market “is in its infancy.” The article states,
“Seventy-three percent of organizations surveyed by the research group said that they are investing or plan to invest in big data technologies. Yet, only 13 percent said that they had deployed related solutions. Big data projects are stalling out in the planning stage, Gartner discovered. “The biggest challenges that organizations face are to determine how to obtain value from big data, and how to decide where to start,” said the firm in a statement… Gartner recommends that organizations sweat the small stuff.”
This means that the idea that individual flaws in data will have less impact on big data is wrongheaded. More data means more flaws, so keeping a close eye on data quality remains important. Companies need to clear away these misconceptions and others mentioned in the article in order to get the most bang for their big data bucks.
Chelsea Kerwin, October 14, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Open Source Negativism and the Future of Open Source Documentation
October 14, 2014
The article on Linux Insider titled Dan Allen and Sarah White: Documentation Dearth Dooms Open Source Projects discusses the work of entrepreneurs Allen and White. The pair have focused on encouraging and aiding software developers in “superior documentation” for open source software. The article includes an interview with White and Allen explaining the function of their program, called Asciidoctor. Allen states in the interview,
“What we have done with Asciidoctor is make the documentation something of value. We do that by, number one, rewarding the writer. For most software developers of open source software, whatever documentation that is created gets published on the website. So we show the developer how the content looks on a Web page displayed in Asciidoctor. When the software developer sees how minor the content is, that triggers motivation to fill in the gaps.”
According to Sarah White, software developers have had a “stunning” response to the motivation to improve documentation (which includes, White notes, improvements to the homepage and to training materials.) Since their start in November, White claims that there has been a tremendous influx of clients interested in making the sort of improvements that White and Allen offer. In the future, White is particularly interested in ensuring that all documentation is integrated to render well on different types of devices, particularly mobile screens.
Chelsea Kerwin, October 14, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Microsoft Dives into End User Insights with Delve
October 14, 2014
Delve is a new offering from Microsoft which allows for integrated content all in one place, which hopefully facilitates discovery of helpful information. Read more in the Forbes article, “Microsoft Delivers End User Insights With Delve.”
The article begins:
“Big data is an awesome term but, frankly, it’s something that is hard for most people to grasp. This is in part due to the fact that there aren’t many particularly good examples of big data being presented to end users in a way which is simple and which extend an existing offering. Microsoft Delve is one such offering, and one which front and centre shows the value to be gained from big data.”
Overall, Delve is viewed as a useful tool, and one that looks pretty cool at the same time. It will take a bit more time to see what the final verdict is in terms of usefulness, particularly for Microsoft users who have already poured a lot of energy into their SharePoint implementation. This may be a helpful add-on. Stay tuned to the SharePoint feed on ArnoldIT.com. Stephen E. Arnold is a long time expert in search and reports on SharePoint news, tips, and tricks, that may be helpful for your organization.
Emily Rae Aldridge, October 14, 2014
Arnold Steps Away from Online Searcher Magazine
October 13, 2014
After several years of writing librarian-centric articles for Online Magazine and Searcher Magazine, I have decided to become an occasional author for Online Searcher. I will try to update the LinkedIn bibliography of my work before the end of the year. Some of my Online Searcher articles are available directly from Information Today. Online Searcher, as you may know, was formed in a crucible of innovation when Information Today merged its two separate publications.
For now, I will continue to provide articles about enterprise search for Information Today and about knowledge management to KMWorld. I have focused more and more on information issues related to law enforcement and intelligence. Although there is a fuzzy boundary between these two domains, I have decided to shift my efforts to operational intelligence and OSINT. I will not be covering these topics in Beyond Search, which focused on the highlights and lowlights of enterprise information systems. Readers active in law enforcement and intelligence will be able to follow my research in my presentations and webinars for those in these specialized communities. Search vendors and those who purvey wild and crazy for fee information services cannot breathe easily. I will be tracking the commercial findability outfits in Beyond Search until the industry changes or I grow tired of writing about jargon, lateral arabesques, and “intelligent” software.
Stephen E Arnold, October 13, 2014
Big Data Failure: Teens and Music
October 13, 2014
How much data are available for teen demographics, popular music sales by genre and medium, downloads from iTunes and Amazon, the music trade associations, and myriad other sources. If there is one industry with data, lots of data, isn’t it the music business?
I read “No One Knows How Teens Listen to Music.” The information is surprising. I thought we lived in the world of Big Data. With flashy algorithms and lots of zeros and ones, the secrets of the universe are exposed. Business strategists and entrepreneurs would flourish. The world would be a better place. Isn’t that what Big Data marketers suggest?
Here’s a passage I noted:
Fast forward to 2014. Nielsen’s recent analysis of the music industry at large showed a six-percent decrease in digital music sales and a 32-percent increase in overall streaming. According to the company, these changes were largely… because of teens. As Martin Pyykkonnen, an analyst at Wedge Partners, told Yahoo last year, “Young people today don’t buy music anymore.” Except maybe they do, according to the Piper Jaffray report. Or maybe they don’t buy MP3s but do download them. Or maybe they don’t download them but do listen to them.
So lots of data about music and teens. We learn, “All the major surveys disagree. Maybe it’s a secret.”
Yep, Big Data delivers. Oh, how about those Ebola predictions?
Stephen E Arnold, October 14, 2014
Quote to Note: HP Has a Racier Side
October 13, 2014
Navigate to “Split Today, Merge Tomorrow.”
Here’s the quote:
Unlike many similar spin-offs, the racier half of HP, which will be called Hewlett-Packard Enterprise and maintain Ms Whitman at the helm, is unlikely to deliver strong growth immediately on being unshackled. Revenues at those businesses have shrunk by 4% in the past year, and competition to sell servers, data storage, software and services to businesses is fierce.
Is the racier an example of British subtlety, or is there an editor who believes that the word “racy” and Hewlett Packard are one of those metaphors like peanut butter and jelly? You know words that just go together.
HP may have a side I have overlooked. Racy.
Stephen E Arnold, October 13, 2014
Profile Engine: Sort of Finding the Forgotten
October 13, 2014
In the supplemental lecture added after the intel conference ended, I addressed the topic of disappearing content. The “right to be forgotten” is one of the great ideas emerging from government committees. I wonder who wants to be forgotten? I provided some basic information about finding information about these forgotten entities.
One of the attendees at my lecture alerted me to Profile Engine. I navigated to the link and learned:
Profile Engine is a fairly low-budget-looking search engine, started in 2007 in New Zealand and partly owned by the Auckland University of Technology. It allows you to find people on social networks. Google has been getting a lot of requests to reverse this trend—almost 3,300 results from Profile Engine have been taken down by Google since May, when the “right to be forgotten” came into effect.
You can find Profile Engine at http://profileengine.com/. We can’t endorse the system, but we will check it out, and I will have an update for my next lecture. Conference organizers extend invitations via email. If you don’t hear about an event, you need to get yourself unforgotten. That’s a bit of humor for this Monday morning.
Stephen E Arnold, October 13, 2014
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